“My arm is a mess, but it can wait—Ula, can you find Taillefer? A Pyrenee soldier stole him away. We need to find him.”
“He needs to find his head on a pike for what he did to Luca,” Ula seethed.
“I do not disagree, but we need him if we are to confront Inés.”
“Inés?” Koldo asked.
Amarande nodded at her but addressed Ula. “Please, I’m safe with Koldo. See if you can find him. If you can’t, or if you find his body, we’ll come up with another plan.”
“You want him alive? I can’t guarantee it.”
“If I managed not to kill him during our time together, I believe you can resist.”
Ula gave a final warning glare to the general, reached into her boot, and pulled out a second dagger. “If I am to leave you with your trust and a trained soldier, I’m at least arming you.” She handed the knife to Amarande without dropping her steeled stare from Koldo’s face. “I will come foryouif anything happens to her.”
In a flash, Ula was gone, jogging back toward where the prison cart had been, prepared to retrace Taillefer’s steps.
“Where did Luca find her?” Koldo asked, her general’s mind admiring the soldier running away, even as her skin blushed red from Ula’s blade.
“He didn’t. She found him—one of his kidnappers. The story is long but not nearly as important as the rest I must tell you.” Amarande clutched Koldo’s arm. “Inés and Domingu conspired to marry and join their kingdoms—with Renard dead and Taillefer disowned, Inés now rules Pyrenee.”
“Can’t say that I am surprised. They were brewing up something at the funeral.”
“Yes, but there’s more—somehow Inés slaughtered not only Domingu but Akil, the heirs that were at the wedding, and all of the sycophants who wouldn’t switch allegiance.”
“What?”
“Inés has declared herself Queen of Pyrenee, Basilica, and Myrcell, and has an armada headed for Ardenia.” She snatched Koldo’s hand. “Straight for Ferdinand. And with three kings fallen, I highly doubt she’s looking to acquire rights to Ardenia through another marriage.”
Shock did not sit well on the general’s features. It typically hadno home there, and even now it was subtle. “But we have no soldiers there. Only castle guards who still wet the bed. They’re sitting ducks.”
“Inés knows that. She knows our soldiers are at the borders. What she doesn’t know is that if she storms the Itspi, she might have what she needs to declare the continent hers.” Amarande drew a steadying breath—it didn’t do much.
“She can’t, though. We know Ferdinand is illegitimate. Stars, you heard him; he abhors the lie. He will tell anyone who will listen, including her.”
“Koldo, she won’t care either way. She will kill him. She will kill Geneva, and then she’ll kill me, and Luca, too. It does not matter who she thinks has the power; she will strike out all the possibilities and take it for herself. The covenants of the Sand and Sky are broken, and no longer matter. All we can do is oppose her.”
The general shook her head. “Or Geneva will take a run at her, using Ferdinand as a shield. Geneva will assume she still has her puppet here—there will be no one to send a caracara with news of this battle. Secure in her power through Ferdinand, Geneva will challenge Inés. She likely has more claim to Basilica than Inés does through paperwork.”
This was true. Amarande herself likely had a better claim than Inés to the right ears within Basilica, and that was through Geneva’s Basilican blood.
“And,” the general continued, the uneasy shock on Koldo’s face giving way to battle-worn sight for the lay of the land, political and otherwise, “if Geneva somehow gets her hands on Taillefer, she could use him to put Inés’s claim of Pyrenee on shaky ground. Conquest steals crowns, but blood is often hard to challenge.”
“Unless you’re a woman. Then a bastard boy is easier to install.”
Amarande did not state it in a cutting manner, just as the truth. But tears formed in Koldo’s eyes. “Yes.”
Amarande watched as this woman, whom she’d never seen shed a tear until her father’s death, began to shake, wetness growing along her eyelashes as she dropped her chin to her chest. Koldo drew in a steadying breath, and when she spoke it was with the precision of the soldier who had been the princess’s surrogate mother. Always so strong, sturdy, direct. Even, it seemed, when she was falling apart.
“Princess, your father always had a plan.”
All the air left Amarande’s lungs.
Her injured hand scrabbled to her waistband. “Before Father’s death, was he planning to go to war with the Warlord?” She pulled the map free, unfolding it. “See this? It’s clear Father knew who Luca was. He knew Geneva was the Warlord. If he knew Geneva was here, he had to know about Ferdinand. What did he want? Why didn’t I—”
Koldo cut her off with a gentle press of a finger to Amarande’s lips. “Princess, your father always had a plan,” she repeated, tears falling now. “For you. For Luca—for me, even. The only time his plans ever failed was when they were not followed.”
Amarande tore herself away from the general’s touch. “I would’ve followed! I would have done what he wanted. Luca would have, too, if we had only known. I knew he had to have a plan, but he never told me.” Her voice shook. “How am I supposed to follow it if I don’t know?”
